TINI MCE Controller

1. Introduction
  1.1 Purpose
  1.2 Requirements
  1.3 License
  1.4 Latest Version
2. Installation and Configuration
  2.1 Required Software
  2.2 MCE Controller
  2.3 MCENetProxy
  2.4 TiniMCEController
3. Building the Project
  3.1 MCENetProxy
  3.2 TiniMCEController
4. Hints and Tricks
5. History

1. Introduction

1.1 Purpose

"TINI MCE Controller" is a monitoring software for the TINI platform to control a Windows Media Center Edition (MCE) PC. It provides a Web interface to monitor the online/standby times, activate standby, shutdown and (periodic) reboot. Furthermore one is able to add new recordings.

Detailed feature list:

Monitoring of MCE-PC status (on, standby/off).
Report of last alive period (start, end).
Report of last triggered reboot (manual or auto reboot).
Report of daily summation of alive times for the last 30 days.
Wake Up.
Standby.
Reboot (manual).
Reboot (daily auto reboot; time is configurable).
Shutdown.
Add Recording (channel, date/time for start and end, quality).

Motivation: I wrote this software because of the unreliability of my Media Center Edition PC. I´m owning a Fujitsu-Siemens Scaleo E (3.0 GHz, 1 GByte RAM, 2 tuner cards, etc.). The root of the evil is the Windows MCE operating system. It is nearly impossible to configure it in a way that the PC works without any trouble. What I´m talking about is:

MCE-PC wakes up without any cause,
MCE-PC doesn´t enter Standby mode,
recordings are missing,
recordings with jammed parts (bucking and jerking over 30 seconds up to 2 minutes),
Media Center application is totally unstable after a few days without rebooting the PC.

I tried a lot of things (see Hints and Tricks), but the first ray of hope was the "MCE Controller" from Kindel Systems that promised the ability to remote control the MCE-PC over a network. My first approach was to implement the remote controller software on the TINI microcontroller board. I always wanted to monitor the MCE-PC, but without running the remote controller software on a second PC. Well, the direct access from TINI to the "MCE Controller" failed (see my entries in the SourceForge bug tracker for that project). The client and the server mode of the "MCE Controller" were unusable for my purposes. The solution was to implement a simple proxy application on the MCE-PC. The proxy connects the TINI software and the "MCE Controller", in a way that all the disadvantages are compensated. That makes the installation and configuration a little bit more complex, but there is no simple solution out there.

1.2 Requirements

On the PC side:

Windows XP Media Center Edition (incl. SP2)
Note: The software was not tested under Windows Vista.
Some RAM, some space on the harddisk, etc.
Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 5.0, see Java 5 SE Downloads
Note: The software was not tested under JRE 6.0.

On the TINI side:

TINI board with DS80C390 or DS80C400 microcontroller, see here
1 MB RAM
Note: The software was not tested on 512 kByte RAM.
I recommend using the latest TINI firmware (Version 1.17 at the moment of writing this file).

1.3 License

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.

1.4 Latest Version

The latest version of this software can be obtained from:

http://tinimcectrl.sourceforge.net/

To download the files, go to the SourceForge project page at:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/tinimcectrl/

If you have an comments, suggestions or bugs to report, please post a message in the project forum.

2. Installation and Configuration

2.1 Required Software

"TiniMCEController" from here
"MCENetProxy" from here
"MCE Controller" from here

2.2 MCE Controller

Download from here: click on "MCE Controller x.y" in the Download section, then click on "Download MCE Controller" and download a file called "MCEController_*_Setup.exe".
Install the software on your MCE-PC.
Note: For detailed information about the "MCE Controller" software, please read the installed HTML documentation.
To run the "MCE Controller" every time the computer is started, create a shortcut to the installed EXE inside your autostart folder.
Run the "MCE Controller". There should be a new symbol at the info area of your task bar (looks like the green button).
Choose "Settings..." from the popup menu.
First tab ("General"): "Hide window on startup" is checked.
Second tab ("Client"):
- "Enable Client": checked
- "Host": 127.0.0.1
- "Port": 5144
- "Reconnect Wait Time": 5000
Third tab ("Server"): "Enable Server" is not checked.
Leave the settings dialog using the OK button.

2.3 MCENetProxy

Download from here: click on "Download TINI MCE Controller" and download a file called "MCENetProxy*.zip".
Create a new directory inside the program files directory of your MCE-PC, e.g. "C:\Program Files\MCENetProxy" or "C:\Programme\MCENetProxy".
Extract the contents of the ZIP file into the newly created directory.
Edit the file "mcenetproxy_config.xml" using your favourite text editor.
- Set "serverPort" to "5144".
- Set "tiniCtrlIP" to the IP address of your TINI, e.g. "169.254.0.67".
- Set "tiniCtrlPort" to "5140".
- Save the file and close the text editor.
To run the "MCENetProxy" every time the computer is started, create a shortcut to the BAT file inside your autostart folder. Don´t forget to edit the shortcut properties to set the execution in a minimized window.
Run the "MCENetProxy" (using the shortcut in the autostart folder).

2.4 TiniMCEController

Download from here: click on "Download TINI MCE Controller" and download a file called "TiniMCEController-*_TINI.zip".
Note: If you are using another TINI firmware version is stated on the download page, you have to create your own .tini file. See the chapter for building the project.
Extract the ZIP file on your computer.
Determine the MAC address of your MCE-PC. Open a command prompt (Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt) and enter the command "ipconfig /all". Take a look at your used network adapter and write down the hexadecimal numbers after "Physical Address".
Determine the broadcast IP address for your MCE-PC. Take a look at the used IP address and network mask of your MCE-PC (e.g. using "ipconfig /all"). Example: If the IP address is 169.254.0.75 and your netmask is 255.255.255.0, then your broadcast IP address is 169.254.0.255.
Edit the file "tinimcecontroller.cfg" using your favourite text editor:
- Type the MAC address of your MCE-PC after "MAC", e.g. "00:40:CA:AD:DA:EA".
- Type the broadcast IP address for sending the Wake-on-LAN packet to your MCE-PC after "BroadcastIP", e.g. "169.254.0.255".
- Server port has to be "5140" after "Port".
- Change the times after "WaitAfterWoLAN", "WaitAfterReboot" and "WaitAfterStandby" only if you experience problems.
- The settings for the auto reboot feature may be configured using the Web interface.
- Configure the user management by entering a user name after "User" and a belonging password after "Password".
- The configuration file has to contain at least one user-password-pair. You may provide as many user-password-pairs as you want.
Upload the files "TiniMCEController.tini" and "tinimcecontroller.cfg" to your TINI using FTP. Furthermore you have to create a folder named "html" on your TINI. Transfer the contents of the local "html" folder to the same folder on your TINI.
To run the "TiniMCEController" every time your TINI is started, edit the file "/etc/.startup":
- Transfer the file to your computer using FTP and edit it using your favourite text editor.
- Add a single line at the end of the file:
  java /TiniMCEController.tini &
  (It is assumed that you have installed the application in the root directory.)
- Save the file and close your text editor. Transfer the file back to the TINI.
Reboot your TINI to run the application.
Use your favourite Web browser to enter the IP address of your TINI. You should see a login page. Enter the user name and password (same as entered in the configuration file, please remember) to login.
After a successful login you may configure the auto reboot feature.
Note: It is recommended to check the option for rebooting the TINI too.
That´s it! Now you are able to remote control your Media Center Edition PC using a simple Web interface!
Please refer to the manual of your router/firewall/etc. to enable the access to the Web server of your TINI from the internet.

3. Building the Project

3.1 MCENetProxy

Download from here: click on "Download TINI MCE Controller" and download a file called "MCENetProxy*_src.zip".
Extract the ZIP file.
You need Apache Ant to build the project (I recommend using version 1.6.5).
The build file provides a few targets. Please use the target "dist" to create a complete distribution.

3.2 TiniMCEController

Download from here: click on "Download TINI MCE Controller" and download a file called "TiniMCEController-*_src.zip".
Extract the ZIP file.
You need Apache Ant to build the project (I recommend using version 1.6.5).
Furthermore you need TiniAnt to create the binary file for the TINI platform (I recommend using version 1.2.0).
Edit the file "build.xml". There is one absolute path that requires changing, so adapt the value of the property "tiniStuffJARPath" to reflect the situation on your computer.
The build file provides a few targets. Please use the target "dist" to create a complete distribution.

4. Hints and Tricks

The following items are proposals to make the Media Center Edition PC as stable as possible. There is no general trick that fixes everything. Furthermore it is a collection of small steps that helped me to stabilize the system.

Install as few applications as possible. I´m using my MCE-PC for recording TV programs, watching these recordings, and converting recordings to AVI/DivX files. That´s all, no mail reading, no other applications, no games!
Install the MCE Standby Tool. It provides a lot of useful features to stabilize your MCE-PC.
Deactivate the service for Help and Support. This service was responsible for the jammed parts of my recordings and totally broken recordings. The Help and Support Center is no longer availble on the computer, but you won´t miss it anyway.
Use an anti-virus software that provides updates at a fixed time. I´ currently using Avira AntiVir Personal Edition Classic.
Always provide a TV signal of high quality to the tuner cards. I experienced more unexplainable wake ups from standby when the TV signal was missing or it had a very bad quality.
Create a backup of your harddisk if you have reached a stable operating state. So you will always have a fall-back if any future installation causes problems.

5. History

List of changes in recent versions:

1.0 : (01-Mar-2007)
- initial version